The present invention relates to sanitary protective foot and shoe coverings and more particularly to disposable sanitary protective coverings adapted to be used as shoe coverings.
Protective shoe coverings are employed for various purposes in hospitals and similar institutions where it is required that foreign matter from shoes be prevented from contaminating surrounding areas. One typical area where such products are extensively used is in operating rooms where the operating room personnel must prevent contamination of the room, equipment and other materials in the room from foreign matter carried by the shoes or boots of the personnel entering the room. In addition, such coverings also protect the foot wear, and in some instances, the lower portions of trousers and socks of the personnel from becoming soiled due to contact with, for example, soiled or contaminated operating room materials such as wet sponges, toweling, irrigating liquids, drippings and the like. Another application of protective shoe coverings is found in areas of patient isolation to prevent contamination of shoes and cross-contamination of patients. Furthermore, depending upon their particular use, the shoe coverings are also employed to dissipate or reduce the possibilty of generating static electricity between shoes worn by personnel and the floor surfaces; the latter requirement is essential when the foot wear coverings are employed in operating rooms where gaseous anesthetic mixtures are employed.
The art contains many proposed types and variations of foot or shoe coverings for the above purposes; typically, they are made of suitable flexible material providing the characteristics required for a particular use. In general, such disposable foot wear coverings well known in the art are comprised of several component parts which are assembled together by suitable means, and provided with suitable tying means added to the resulting product. Thus, such foot coverings are fabricated from an assemblage of several components, requiring several manufacturing steps to provide a completed product.
Foot coverings of a single or few components are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,824,714; 3,798,503 and 3,648,109, which illustrate disposable foot coverings of a single length of flexible material manufactured by a simple and economical process which eliminates extra manufacturing steps associated with foot coverings assembled from several component parts. However, although foot wear coverings made from a single piece of material have been taught, the fabrication of those shoe coverings include seams or stitches on the upper, front portion of the shoe coverings.
Notwithstanding their advantages, these foot wear coverings have not proven entirely satisfactorily under all conditions of service for the reason that bacteria and dust particles are able to penetrate at the seam or juncture of the component parts or at the seam or juncture of the panels in the case of a single piece of material, especially when the seam is located on the upper front portion of the covering.
Besides protective coverings for the shoes of the wearer, protective coverings in the form of low cut boots are also used by hospital and institution personnel. One typical protective boot is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,824,714. This boot covers the shoes of the wearer and encloses the trouser leg of the wearer so as to afford protection in those areas. Included on this boot and other typical boots is an electrically conductive tape to minimize static electricity build-up; tie string means are included on the upper portion of the boot to secure the upper portion snugly around the ankle of the wearer.
While tie string means are well known to secure both shoes and boots to the foot of the wearer, some problems have surfaced in their use. For instance, tie strings on protective boots may keep the boot flaps held around the leg of the wearer; however, due to loosening of the tie strings oftentimes the boot flaps do not remain up on the leg of the wearer, but tend to slide down. When this happens, the trousers and/or socks of the wearer become exposed to contaminated operating room materials.